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Greetings all,

The end of July is upon us. That seems like mid-way through the year, so it is time for our mid-year round-ups!

I have it all written down here:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2025/07/random-mid-year-round-up-pardner.html

However, here is a quick breakdown. I tend to put things into the following categories; Purchases, Painting, Gaming, Writing, and other Random stuff.

First off, Thank You! My purchases are driven by you. Every time you purchase a game from Osprey, Wargames Vault, Drive Thru RPG, follow me on Patreon or support me in other ways you are funding this goal. You see, my Purchasing goals are driven directly by the financial support of readers like you. It is your support that allows me to buy the paints, supplies, miniatures, and rules that grace this humble blog. Your purchases are what keeps Blood and Spectacles Publishing going. The money I earn here goes back into the business of wargaming! Thank you for making all of the publications and projects possible!

Purchase:
- Pacific Command
- Victory at Sea
- Mage in the Mirror for HQ
- First Light for HQ
- Wandering Monk for HQ
- Pendragon: GameMaster's Handbook
- Austro--Hungarian fleet for Castles in the Sky

Painting:
- 130+ miniatures
- Mostly Anglo-Saxons and some HeroQuest

Gaming:
- Battle of Kadesh
- Castles in the Sky
- Heroquest

Writing
- The Corinthian War
- Glittering Void: A Role-Playing Game of Space Mecha Theatre
- Odin's Ravens: Viking Age Bad Boys
- Badlands: Wild West Role-Playing

Other Stuff:
- Moving over to BlueSky

Your turn! I look forward to hearing about what you have done! Add pictures too please or send us to your blog!

Gosh, my year in terms of hobbying has not been as good as last year due to various reasons. Painting-wise, definitely slow going but getting plenty of gaming in! The second half tends to pick up as I end up with more time in the evenings.

Purchases:
Largely Legions Imperialis stuff. Arvus Lighters, a few tanks, a titan box and some terrain to round out my collection.
Bought some Blood Bowl stuff to round out/start new teams
Did also buy a Switch 2...

Painting:
Only 18 minis this year, mostly Kill Team and a few additions to exisiting BB teams, but a lot of stuff in the pipeline is 80-90%.

Gaming:
Blood Bowl
Space Gits
Aeronautica Imperialis
Legions Imperialis
Adeptus Titanicus
Boarding Actions

Other:
Got my Legions Imperialis army in the display cabinet at my local gaming store!

My year was mostly occupied with prepping for this one thing I just finished this weekend, that took months of CAD, printing, painting, planning, writing etc. to prepare.

The other stuff is barely worth mentioning in comparison - mostly I just about finished 3k of Horus Heresy Death Guard, and played a handful of games of Kings of War.

(repost from "Last game you played" thread)

I generally do my halftime report at the end of June in my blog. The TL;DR version is I’m getting a lot of minis painted and games in, but the mini selection, while way more then planned, is not covering the projects I wanted to focus on.



How we doing?

I wrote:Here are my New Year’s resolutions:
1 Paint 12 members for the primaris battle company 1/12
2 Paint at least 24 Tyranids, and strive to keep them PoS neutral. 18/24
3 Paint more than I buy. 99/40
4 Paint at least 3 units that have been in the primed pile/Pile of Shame for 3+ years
5 Update my blog at least once a week, and maintain a consistent pace of work (1 mini a week).
6 Paint at least two units for 4 different factions. 7/8
7 Enter and finish an entry every month for the painting challenge. If the monthly challenge stops, enter at least one comp in the year.
8 Paint a tank. 0/1
9 Get more games in. At least 6. -Done

1 - way behind. With the AoP focus on soulblight, this is going to have to be a fall priority
2 - Doing good. Might be able to bang out the last of these in scrap times at the end of the months. Or a dedicated push to clear all the remaining nids
3 - Solid here. I’ve picked up a number of things, but am getting them painted.
4 - I got one cent done before the undead took over. Might miss this one this year. The fact that minis qualify for this goal means there is no motivation on them.
5 - Blogging good, painting well ahead of goal. Like almost 2x my goal at halftime. Progress harkening back to my 4 mini a week goal of my youth
6 - The only thing keeping this from being done is I’ve not done 2 units of nids, Painting 3 more termagaunts will check this off.
7 - Actually won a month. Entry record continues.
8 - Nope. This is going to have to happen at the end of the year. I guess I could start one in the background as they don’t take up space on the handles. I should do that.
9 - Rocking this one. While I do occassionally miss a weekend, I am getting down to the store weekly. And almost always find a game.

So overall doing pretty good. The cocmpany/tank goals are way behind, but we still have half the year left. Although I suspect those are going to be crammed into Q4

Good work everyone.

That Turnip28 event is a huge accomplishment. Kudos!

Pretty good year so far. I'd like to be getting in more games, but I've been pretty happy to not have much pressure to paint and more time for other hobbies. Scaled way back on purchases and focused on cleaning up backlogs. Game by game breakdown:

Warmachine

Started off the year buckling down and painting my MK4 Khador backlog. The colossus also arrived in March to let me see how far I've come in terms of painting red. Currently fighting the urge to buy Old Umbrey and having more to paint.

Play wise its been a little disappointing. Lots of interest but often still getting passed over for other games. Always a blast when I play but still not back in the spotlight.

Marvel Crisis Protocol

Caught up at the start of the year for the most part. Picked up Yondu/Man-Thing/Gladiator/Abombination/Phoenix sets and got them painted right away. Also worked a bit on the terrain backlong and got that down to a few bits I need to finish up soon.

Play is regular but definitely something I'd like to play a lot more just due to the sheer variety of options. A favorite that's fairly popular but the movie lull is definitely impacting the casual zeal.

Shatterpoint

The errata got me to pick up Cad Bane for the Bounty Hunter list but this is a game I just don't feel a need to buy everything for so I remain fully painted but would love to get some terrain variety put together.

It DOES see a lot of play though. One of the most common games I get pinged to play games beyond the schedule for and its easily the game I've gotten the most out of a pretty limited collection of models. I don't feel the need to buy a lot of stuff here, but I really enjoy playing what I've got.

Infinity

Infinity got a lot of hype with the N5 release and I picked up a few things to fill gaps from when I dropped off N4 for my Nomads and models to expand my Shesvastii to vanilla Combined that's all been painted up. Also added a selection of decorative scatter terrain to give my table some more life.

In terms of play its on the lower end with some very dedicated but infrequent players. I'm not as enthusiastic personally as I don't feel like I play enough to feel the breadth of the game, but it remains my favorite system for ranged combat.

Malifaux

This game was dead at the start of the year but M4E had bolstered it significantly. I picked up some of the M3E releases I missed and got them painted and painted up a Gardens of Morr set I've had forever to add to my terrain collection.

In terms of play, I think the new edition has a ton of smart changes and overall really like it, but I'm not totally sold on the keyword design overall. A lot of my crews don't feel like they have a strong theme which is what primarily draws me to the game, so while the beta has been fun, I'm not sure if its got enough to pull me back in.

Judgement

Just picked up some newer releases I need to paint still, but otherwise I've been caught up for a while.

In terms of play this is easily my favorite game that hasn't taken off as much as I'd like (after MonPoc). We've got players locally but other games definitely seem to be their priority.

Warhammer 40k

Took some time to clean up the Ork backlog and decided rather than let my Imperial Knights sit on the shelf, I'd spike them up and get myself a Chaos faction. That project is currently on the painting table but I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

In terms of play, I don't play nearly as much as I should, but Tenth is insanely popular and easily the first time I've genuinely liked the game. I should probably make more of an effort, but there's no shortage of 40k players for the first time I can recall in the area and I find myself carrying the torch for other games most weeks.